Question

9. Why isn’t Earth’s climate uniform? To answer this, summarize the major factors that can produce differences in climate from place to place.

Answer 1

The surface of the earth is not uniform in the equator and polar regions. So, the Solar energy obtained from the sun heats various regions of the earth not uniformly.

The major factors that responsible for climatic differences are:

1. Elevation

2. Ocean currents

3. Distance from equator

1. Elevation

The temperature decreases as the height of the altitude increases. Due to these conditions, the density of the air becomes very less, the heat withholding capacity decreases. In every 100 meters increase in altitude, the temperature is roughly decreased by 1°C. The lower and mid-mountain regions consist of some grasslands and forest whereas higher elevated regions have extreme cold temperatures and mostly covered with snows.

2. Ocean Currents

The water bodies like lakes and ocean can influence the surrounding climatic conditions. They have an important role of maintaining the atmospheric temperature conditions. The water from these bodies evaporate from the earth and comes back as snow and rain. The ocean currents transfer the stream of water (ie. Hot or water) from one current to other current. In certain regions it makes the climate warmer or colder depending upon the water they transferred.

3.   Distance from equator

          The sunlight reaches faster in equator region making it warm and hot in tropics. In poles, the travel path of sunlight becomes longer making it harder to reach earth surface due to atmospheric particle deflection thereby its much colder in artic regions. These differences in heating pattern also contribute to climatic changes.